Drinking a 2004 Dayi 7542--HK dry storage. This is a cake from a dealer who specializes in traditional storage. The family's tea isn't labeled; you have to interact with them to figure out what they have and she surprised me several months ago by offering me a dry storage cake that smelled like her traditional storage. I eventually bought some and found the cake and the storage to be much cleaner than I expected.

I'm revisiting the cake after several months and it tastes even cleaner than before with citrus/black tea notes my own storage would eke out of 7542. This is really a lovely tea and couldn't be more perfect to wake up to today!

Drinking aged cha tou from a dealer in Kunming! Cha tou are compressed nuggets of shou pu that form at the bottom of the pile during fermentation. I really love cha tou because they have great longevity and often develop very interesting warm and sweet flavors with age. These cha tou have developed a freshly baked bread aroma in the last year of storage here in Hong Kong, as well as an unexpected natural almond character that I really like! The tea is perhaps less sweet smelling than it was when first purchased, but there is still a lot of sweetness there, along with the baked bread and almonds!
I started this tea last night, drank several infusions today, and I think the leaves have enough oomph to get me through tomorrow as well!

2 sessions today. Morning session of 2010 Xiaguan Xiao Fa ripe. Solid morning tea that gets me going. Just now finished up my evening session of yet another xiaguan tea, the 2012 88 round cake raw puerh. I bought a pair of these from YS with intentionsof Aging them. Brewing up a golden color. Some smokiness but not nearly as harsh as some of xiaguans other productions. Coming along nicely, I see this being great in a few years of continued humid storage.

2007 Yiwu Gaoshan - don't be fooled by the wrapper. It was the tea that got me started and the heavy bitterness (for Yiwu anyway) has now faded and the taste is just truly amazing. The journey has been just as good as the current taste... looking forward to another 10 years of Puer tasting.

Multi-day session of 2007 Xi Zhi Hao 8582. This tea has really darkened in the past couple years. There's more sourness than I remember, but the overall feeling is very calming and damp. Bitterness has really pulled back and it's starting to be a nicely aged tea.

Very jealous! let me know how those new V93’s are. I have a few from 2015 that I enjoy a lot.

Will do! I have a few V93s from 2015 (I think) that I am waiting to drink. I feel they need several years of storage to really come into their own. Same with the 2017s...I won't sample them until 2020 or maybe 2022, depending on how they smell!

EDIT: Not 2015s--I have 2010s that smell quite good right now! They may be ready to drink. They have only been down in Hong Kong since 2015 or so; prior to that they were in cryostorage at a large, climate controlled warehouse in Yunnan. Dayi's own storage prevents aging, aside from when they age tea just a little before pressing.

EDIT: It appears I have some 2015s too that are smelling sweet, but I think they need another year to get to where I want them. I'll give them another try this time next year!

Today I decided to brew up the 2000 Xia Guan toucha that I had unpacked over the weekend. The smoke and strong bitterness from memory has dissipated greatly. The familiar Xia Guan signature of woodsy citrus and floral is recognizable but with a darker complexion. Old style puerh tea that packed quite a punch in its early day, now showing signs of mellowing out and becoming smoother.

PuerhCollector wrote:
Today I decided to brew up the 2000 Xia Guan toucha that I had unpacked over the weekend. The smoke and strong bitterness from memory has dissipated greatly. The familiar Xia Guan signature of woodsy citrus and floral is recognizable but with a darker complexion. Old style puerh tea that packed quite a punch in its early day, now showing signs of mellowing out and becoming smoother.